Aidan, I have a /29 subnet with a block of public IPs. With the way my firewall is setup there is no less security because I still have to explicitly allow access to tcp/UDP traffic in order to gain connectivity. The big difference is that there are NO NAT rules required. Just pin holes in the linux firewall that sits in front of the actual game server. I don't know of any other way to get the ping going,and believe me I have tried.

Rat buddy, this is like running the server without a router.... Eg plugging a modem into the server and removing the router...but this has some security implications that are better avoided. Depending on how your DMZ is configured, I guess this could work so long as your server has a public ip address assigned to it's NIC and there is no NAT'ing taking place between it and the Internet.

Networking is not my strong point so please excuse me if this is not described with correct technical language. I tend to use trial and error to get the result rather than sitting down and crafting a perfect solution first off.

OK... i have figured this out. Sorry for those that may find this elementry. But it was a lot of trial and error (and google'ing) to find out what was going on. This is for the other guys who have also posted here with this problem.

I tried port forwards as stated above, and also configured a 1:1 NAT in an effort to get the ping showing in game browser. I eventually began to believe that it was NAT that was causing the problem, and configured my linux firewall with a transparent bridged filter. This meant that i could assign one of my public IP addresses to the NIC on the server. So when the server starts up and lists its IP it is a public IP and not an LAN one....eg 203.xxx.xxx.xxx and not 192.xxx.xxx.xxx.

If you dont have a public IP on the NIC of the server that is running the game then the ping with apear as N/A in the game browser. I have fixed our server and it is displaying fine now. Hope someone else finds this helpful.

If the server gets a private IP (192.XXX...), there's no way the ping is gonna show even with the right ports forwarded. Your server has to be in a PC that has a public IP (doesn't starts with 192.XXX...).

It never did that. Whenever I would host it would always show up with my proper ip (85.253.103.21) both on the Spooky's server list and Wars' ingame server list. There's something else going on there, but the dude's incomprehensible geek-speak is obscuring the truth.

It never did that. Whenever I would host it would always show up with my proper ip (85.253.103.21) both on the Spooky's server list and Wars' ingame server list. There's something else going on there, but the dude's incomprehensible geek-speak is obscuring the truth.

That's not the point, if your server is behind a Router, i.e. not directly connected to the Internet, i.e. does not have a public IP, it is more difficult to enable the server to be ping-able via the in-game server browser. Your public IP is 85.253.103.21, but I am assuming your server is somewhere behind a router. Connections to that server are routed by your router via NAT, Network Address Translation.

What Mackie did was configure his Router so that the internet connection for one particular machine on his network, the game server, is bridged directly to a public IP and thus users can connect to it directly, without any NATing.